Electrically conducting whale line



Patented Oct. 10, 1939 UNITED STATES P AT E N T 0 F F I C E ELECTRICALLY CONDUCTING WHALE LINE Original application May 16, 1934, Serial No. 725,911. Divided and this application April 1936, Serial No. 77,162. In Germany May 18,

1 Claim.

My invention relates to improvements in harpoon lines and in particular to electric current conducting harpoon lines consisting of a plurality of individual cables or strands.

For hunting larger marine animals, especially whales, in recent times use is made of the electric current, by which the animal to be caught is killed. For this purpose harpoon lines are necessary which transmit the current from its source on the whaling vessel through the harpoon, shot into the animal's body, to the animal. From there it returns through the water and the vessels bull to the source of the current.

Whale lines consisting of hemp rope and electric conductors hitherto used for this purpose have the drawback that owing to the required great strength, they must be comparatively thick and become, therefore, quite heavy. Consequently when the harpoon is discharged, the line which is taken along by it offers a large resistance in running off. It greatly impedes the harpoon, which for that reason flies with a considerable reduced impetus and therefore often misses its target altogether or strikes it with only a small force. With such prior art whale lines therefore only marine animals which are close to the vessel can be harpooned. These aforementioned defects are partly also caused by the lack of suiiicient flexibility and pliability of the line. For the latter reason the coiling of the line on deck close to the cannon before the discharge of the harpoon becomes also a matter of some difliculty.

A further disadvantage of the heretofore known whale lines is that the electric conductor is apt to become entangled or kinked when the harpoon is discharged and during its flight. Frequently the accelerated force coming into action when the harpoon is fired causes the hemp line or the electric conductor, or both, to become entangled or the electric conductor to separate from the hemp line or to tangle up by itself. Thereby the hemp line and also the material of the electric conductor are severely strained and the durability of the whale line is thereby considerably reduced. It often also occurs that owing to the entangling, the harpoon somersaults which causes it to deviate from its intended trajectory so that it is apt to miss its target or that it only wounds the animal without holding it.

According to my invention these drawbacks heretofore inherent to whale lines composed of individual conducting cables and hemp ropes are obviated by stranding the individual main strands together in a direction contrary to that in which the constituent strand elements or substrands of the main strands are laid. With this construction each individual main strand may consist of stranded individual sub-strands which are surrounded by a rubber covering. It is, for instance, advantageous to make each main strand of three individual sub-strands covered with hemp and rubber and which sub-strands in themtudinal resiliency is imparted to the current conducting strands, at least equal or greater than the resiliency of the fibre strands which surround the conductors or with which the fibre strands are laid.

This longitudinal resiliency is imparted to the conducting strands by laying the individual strands of which the main conductor is composed spirally at a comparatively short pitch around a rubber core, and by taking care that a suitable space is left between the individual wire strands. Of course these individual wire strands may again be composed of stranded wire. Around this stranded main conductor is then wrapped an insulating and water-tight rubber covering. This conductor is then used as a core for the outer fibre portion of the harpoon line. By this construction the eifect is attained that owing to the short pitch of the conductor strands and the spaces left between the strands the constituent elements of thisiconductor have comparatively large freedom ofi'notion relatively to one another in transverse direction, tending nevertheless, owing to the resiliency of the rubber core, to return to their normal length after the stress has ceased.

Since in this stretching action the rubber core is mechanically stressed and subject to wear it is surrounded according to the present invention with a knitted cover before the conductor strands are laid around it. A knitted covering which may be arranged and produced for instance in the manner shown in the Reissue Patent No. 19,551 to Franz Meiwald, has the great advantage that, contrary to the heretofore customary braided coverings, itoffers very little resistance to the to one another so that the entire conductor always retains its shape.

My invention is illustrated in the accompanying drawing in which Fig. 1 shows in perspective view and in greatly enlarged scale the conducting portion of a whale line;

Fig. 2 shows in perspective view and also greatly enlarged the entire whale line composed of three conducting strands, each surrounded by the necessary amount of. fibre stranding; and

Fig. 3 shows in longitudinal section a portion of the conducting cable in which rubber strands are laid between the individual conductor strands of which the cable is composed.

Referring to Fig. l, the rubber core is denoted with 2, the knitted covering surrounding the rubber core is denoted with 3, and d are conductor strands laid around the covered rubber core. The entire conducting cable is surrounded by an insulating rubber covering The conducting strands 4, for instance copper wire, which each in itself may be composed of fine strands, may be laid in one or several layers, preferably with interstitial spaces between the adjacent strands in each layer. While the rubber core 52 is shown in Fig. 1 havin a square cross-section, it may have, of course, any other suitable cross-section.

Such a cable as shown at 9 in .Fig. 2 is then surrounded by a suitable number 'of layers of fibre strands 6 to form one of the main strands of the whale line, and for instance three of such main strands l and are twisted together. It

a, i. '2' 5, a so is not 'necessary that all three main strands of the whale line contain an electric conductor as a core as shown in Fig. 2. It is suflicient if one or two of. the main strands are so equipped. since the principle in accordance with which the line is used involves only one current carrying conductor, because the water is used as a return conductor.

In Fig. 3 is more particularly shown the man ner in which the stranded electric conductor may be made longitudinally more resilient by also inserting rubber strands 13 between the adjacent conductor strands i2. denotes in this case the insulating rubber jacket which surrounds the entire conductor. When such a conductor is subject to longitudinal stresses the spiral rub ber strands are compressed by the adjacent conductor strands and when the stresses cease they force the conductor strands back into their normal position.

A line equipped with such a conductor not only has longitudinal resiliency, but has by far less tendency to kink. It also has the great advantage that the initial impact upon the line in longitudinal direction which occurs when the harpoon is fired is to a large extent absorbed by this longitudinal resiliency of the line.

I claim:

An electrically conducting non-kinking harpoon line consisting of a plurality of twisted main fibre strands in at least one of which is embedded an electric cable, said cable having means for imparting to it a longitudinal resiliency at least equal to the resiliency of said main fibre strands, said means comprising a rubber strand element having a cross section deviating from circular cross section and forming the core, a knitted fibre covering surrounding said core, a plurality of electrically conducting wire strands laid spirally with a short pitch and in spaced relation to one another around said core and a layer of insuiating rubber surrotmding said strands.

FERDINAND HANFF. 

